A few weeks ago, Savannah and I, along with our spoiled pups, Hunter and Chloe, packed up the SUV and headed east to visit the Sweet Home Alabama filming locations. Unlike our previous tours, we split this tour into two days since the 16 locations we were visiting were spread out across Georgia. On the first day we traveled to a small out-of-the-way town called Crawfordville where the majority of the movie was filmed. This town served as the backdrop for Pigeon Creek, Alabama and housed 12 of the 16 filming locations we visited. On the following day, we traveled north and south of Atlanta to visit the remaining 4 locations.

Recently I published a blog posted titled “Sweet Home Alabama: Then and Now – 12 Years Later” to share our journey through Pigeon Creek with our family and friends, as well as all the fans of the movie. The post includes more than 80 then-and-now photos, video of the filming locations stitched in with scenes from the movie, then-and-now slideshow, and behind-the-scenes photos. There’s a lot of great content in the post so check it out if you haven’t done so already.

It’s been almost 2 years since I put together a motion picture filming location tour so I felt it was time to sift through the long list of movies that were filmed on location in Georgia in hopes of finding another film that sparked my interest. This time, however, my girlfriend Savannah helped me with the decision-making process since we recently visited the filming locations for one of my favorite childhood televisions shows – The Dukes of Hazzard.

After spending some time weeding though the portfolio of films we finally landed on a popular film that follows the story of two childhood sweethearts from Alabama who marry, separate, argue, argue some more, and then ultimately rekindle their relationship. This Cinderella story with a twist is none other than the movie, Sweet Home Alabama.

Although Facebook Comments launched in 2011 it wasn’t until recently that I decided to implement the comment system into my blog. There were several reasons why I didn’t pull the trigger on the new comment system when it launched, but the primary reason was simply because there was no out-of-the-box method to export all the comments from my then-comment system to Facebook Comments. However, after kicking around the pros and cons for a bit, I took the plunge and installed Facebook Comments since it will reduce the number of trolls, silence the anonymous commenters, and help facilitate higher quality conversations. That being said, here’s to a fresh start!

Okay, so in this tutorial I’m going to explain how to manually implement Facebook Comments for those of you who choose not to install a plugin or unable to install a plugin due to an old WordPress version you might be running. Let’s get started.Read More

Last month, my girlfriend Savannah and I took a road trip with our pups, Hunter and Chloe, to explore all The Dukes of Hazzard filming locations in Georgia. We visited more than 20 filming locations on our self-guided tour and were happy to find most of the original structures still standing. The Boar’s Nest, Uncle Jesse’s Farm, Hazzard Square, as well as many of the famous jump sites, were some of our favorite spots to visit.

On July 1, 2014. I published a blog post titled “The Dukes of Hazzard: Then and Now – 35 Years Later” to share our journey through Hazzard County with family, friends, and all the fans of the show. The blog post includes a lot of information about the first 5 episodes filmed on location in Georgia, tons of then-and-now photos, and a couple of mash-up videos. If you haven’t done so already, check it out!

When I think about television shows that I grew up watching as a kid several shows come to mind, but there are only a handful that stand out above the rest. The Dukes of Hazzard is one of those stand-out shows that earned its way onto my television screen each and every Friday night.

If the show is before your time or you simply live under a rock and never seen an episode, The Dukes of Hazzard follows the high-octane escapades of cousins Bo and Luke Duke (“the Duke boys”) as they spend most of their days racing around Hazzard County in their 01-branded 1969 bright orange Dodge Charger, the General Lee, evading crooked commissioner, Boss Hogg, and his inept sheriff duties. The boys often receive assistance from their attractive cousin Daisy, wise Uncle Jesse, and honorary Duke, Crazy Cooter. It is never a dull moment dealing with the Dukes!

I’ve been swimming in the social media space for more than 15 years now and while I’ve shared hundreds of pictures and videos of my yellow Lab Hunter to all of my social networks, I never created an Instagram account for him. Trust me, I’ve thought about introducing Hunter to the millions of dog lovers that saturate the social network, but it takes time to effectively manage multiple (read: 10) social networking accounts, especially when you’re busy with life in general.

Sure, posting pictures every day on Instagram is a fairly easy task, but that alone is not how you build a targeted following. While the first requirement can be satisfied by posting engaging content on Instagram, applying a cool filter, searching for the “right” popular hashtags, and interacting with fans are necessary ingredients to build a successful brand. After all, showcasing your pet’s awesomeness and cuteness in order to achieve rock star status is the ultimate goal, right? Don’t get it twisted, I’m not suggesting this is a numbers game or a popularity contest. I’m merely stating that it’s all about leveraging the social network to bring more exposure to your pet.

In September 2012 I published a blog post titled “My Cousin Vinny: Then and Now 20th Anniversary” to celebrate the 20th anniversary of one of my all-time favorite films – My Cousin Vinny. The post includes lots of photos and videos, and was well received by many fans across the Web.

After receiving great feedback and so many readers showing interest in learning more about the filming locations, I decided to publish a second blog post titled “My Cousin Vinny Filming Locations” to share my travel itinerary with other fans so they can experience all the filming locations as well.

While I was in Austin last week launching our social media app at South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive I was excited to break away from the business side of things once everything settled down a bit so my girlfriend Savannah and I could explore all the events happening around the city. Since SXSW is saturated with coolness I put together an itinerary so we could experience as much as possible in the short time we were in town.

A few days prior to SXSWi I was at our Airbnb spot in downtown Austin testing the most recent build of our app and brainstorming with my team. While I was looking out the window collecting my thoughts, (mind you, these windows are 10-feet tall and wrap around the majority of the apartment, hence, the city view was simply stunning) I couldn’t help but notice the building directly across from our high-rise apartment. Although the building was approximately 4x smaller in height than the Whitley building where we were staying, I managed to catch a glimpse of the sign that was displayed on the brick siding, it read uShip. Sound familiar?

The other day one of my colleagues was trying to add a hyperlink to our company logo so when someone clicks on the image it will redirect them to our company website. Unfortunately his attempt was unsuccessful so he reached out to me for assistance since he noticed that the logo in my signature was already linked. Normally IT or marketing departments handle this task, but because we’re a tech startup we must wear multiple hats around here and sort these things out ourselves. That being said, after negotiating a delicious lunch in exchange for my services I walked him through the steps. I kid. I kid. I didn’t charge him anything for the help. Okay, moving on…

Although adding an image to a Gmail signature is fairly simple, linking the image to a website appears to be a difficult task for a lot of people. Therefore, I thought it would be a good idea to publish a tutorial that explains how to accomplish this task. Here are the steps to convert your logo into a hyperlink image:

Although you might have caught an episode or two of the reality series, let me give you a brief summary just in case you’re not familiar with the show. Hardcore Pawn is a reality TV series which airs on TruTV and follows the daily antics of the Gold family as they haggle with obnoxious customers in order to earn a buck or two on the items they buy and sell in their real-life pawn shop. Regardless if the show is scripted, reality, or a combination of both, this show is entertaining.